Field
Embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to methods for forming a dielectric material on a substrate, and more specifically, to methods for forming a high-k gate dielectric in an electronic device.
Description of the Related Art
Integrated circuits may include more than one million micro-electronic field effect transistors (e.g., complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) field effect transistors) that are formed on a substrate (e.g., semiconductor substrate) and cooperate to perform various functions within the circuit. A CMOS transistor includes a gate structure disposed between source and drain regions that are formed in the substrate. The gate structure generally includes a gate electrode and a gate dielectric. The gate electrode is disposed over the gate dielectric to control a flow of charge carriers in a channel region formed between the drain and source regions beneath the gate dielectric. Typically, dielectric materials, such as SiO2, may be used as the gate dielectric. Recently, the gate dielectric may be formed from a material having a dielectric constant greater than 4.0, or high-k dielectric material, in order to increase the speed of the transistor. However, the high-k dielectric material has bulk traps caused by oxygen vacancies in the high-k dielectric material, leading to significant threshold voltage shift and device performance degradation.
Therefore, there is a need for a process to form dielectric materials, such as high-k dielectric materials.